By: Rohith Gutta
January 17 2024
U.S. military did not arrest Colorado Supreme Court judge who disqualified Donald Trump
Share Article:
Screenshot of the Real Raw News article claiming that Justice William Hood of the Colorado Supreme Court who disqualified Trump was arrested by the US Military (Source: Real Raw News/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
The US Special Forces did not arrest Justice William Hood. The misinformation first emerged from Real Raw News, a site known to spread misinformation.
Claim ID 0d596964
What's the claim?
On January 3, a user on Facebook known to spread misinformation shared a screenshot from a Real Raw News article titled, “Military Arrests Second Colorado Supreme Court Justice”. The article, published on January 2, claims US Special Forces arrested Justice William Hood III on January 1 from his Florida home where he had been in hiding since December 27. It goes on to claim that he was the second judge of the Colorado Supreme Court to be arrested. The article claims that he complained of getting threats from Make America Great Again (MAGA) sections. The article claims to have obtained quotes from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marines. Archives of the Facebook post and the website article can be seen here and here.
William Hood has been a judge at the Colorado Supreme Court since 2013, and the U.S. Special Forces is a special operations force of the U.S. Army.
Screenshot of the Real Raw News article about the Colorado Judge’s alleged arrest (Source: Real Raw News/Modified by Logically Facts)
What we found
There are no credible news reports about Justice Hood’s arrest. Neither the U.S. military nor the Colorado Judicial Department has released any such statement.
According to AP News on December 20, 2023, the Supreme Court of Colorado ruled by a vote of 4:3 that former U.S. President Donald Trump was ineligible for the White House and removed him from the state’s primary ballot under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause. Justice Hood was among the four who decided to disqualify Trump. William W Hood III was appointed to the Supreme Court of Colorado in 2013 by the then-governer of Colorado, John Hickenlooper. He was re-elected to a ten-year term in 2016.
Real Raw News claims “to bring to light topics often ignored by others.” The disclaimer on its "About Us" page reads that the content on its site contains “humor, parody, and satire.” However, Logically Facts analyzed the content and found that the site regularly publishes misinformation and conspiracy theories, often citing “highly placed anonymous sources,” like the US Marines source cited in the viral article in question.
According to the Posse Comitatus Act, the US Military cannot participate in civil law enforcement unless they are authorized to do so by an Act or the Constitution, according to a report by the Brennan Centre for Justice, a non-profit organization based out of the School of Law at the New York Univerity (NYU).
Logically Facts contacted the Colorado Judicial Department for clarification. "Nothing about those claims is true – no members of the Colorado Supreme Court, nor any other Colorado judicial officers – have been arrested," Jon Sarché, the Deputy Public Information Officer of the Colorado Judicial Department responded.
The verdict
A screengrab of an article from misinformation site Real Raw News has been shared to claim U.S. Special Forces arrested Justice William W. Hood III, a judge at the Colorado Supreme Court. There is no report to corroborate Hood’s arrest and a representative from the Colorado Judicial Department has refuted the claim. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.